


Juggling

by DebetEsse



Category: Mirrormask (2005)
Genre: Juggling, Pre-Het, Ran away to join the circus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DebetEsse/pseuds/DebetEsse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Optional Subtitle: How the Man Who Isn't Valentine Joined the Circus</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juggling

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Trudy Booth and Tree for beta.  
> I was searching for something to name unValentine, and happened upon Callum in a list of popular baby names and discovered that it's a form of Malcolm, which I had rejected as too on-the-nose. I called it Destiny and went with it.
> 
> Written for Angie

 

 

Six months after joining the circus-it still made him smile to think of it that way-Callum came to a realisation while stacking the fliers to be hung around the town they'd stopped in. He started to figure it out when Jack the Acrobat came on, but it hadn't properly come clear until now. These people trusted him. It's an odd realization, and, as much as he'd like to credit his helping out at his mother's inn growing up, he knew that wasn't why. It's Helena. Helena, the strange little creature who talked to him as though they'd known each other for years, even as she was first showing him around the camp. She called him "Valentine" less, now, though he still heard her starting to sometimes.

The first week, he hadn't managed to go more than a half-hour awake without seeing her. When she wasn't asking him to help her with something or showing him how to do something, she was "passing by". He figured it was a crush: after all, she was only 15, and the circus is an insular place. But that wasn't it. She wasn't the least bit shy around him. She also seemed to have no interest in trying to impress him. She just seemed to think she knew him. Which, for whatever reason, made him feel like he knew her. Not that he really knew anything about her, but that he felt like whatever history it was that Helena seemed to think they had was real. He felt himself stretching to fill the shoes of the person she thought he was, not just because she took it for granted that he would, but because he wants to be that person. He'd spent most of his life finding his way into and out of one mess after another, never making much of himself. But the Campbells were more than happy to have the help on the less-glamourous side of the circus business, especially from someone who lacked any particular performance skills. And especially after the scare they'd had with Mrs. C just before he'd come on. 

He checked his watch and rushed out of the office toward the main tent. 

#####

"You're late," Helena greeted him, and tossed him one of the balls she was juggling. They'd been working on his juggling skills more or less from the beginning-Helena said she knew he had a great juggler hiding somewhere inside, he just had to find it. He was getting rather good, if he did say so himself (which he didn't, as he had no room at all to boast among his co-workers, but other people had commented). 

He and Helena rarely talked anymore during the sessions. She continued to push him, but he was to the point where he could correct himself, either by feel or by watching her. It was like dancing, really, and he enjoyed the half-hour of time when he couldn't possibly be finishing one thing up and starting on something else. He'd mentioned to her once that, if his writing wasn't bollocks, he'd write a book on juggling as meditation. She'd agreed that it was a good way to find yourself, and then laughed like she did when there was a joke that Callum didn't get, but the man in her head-Valentine-would.

At the end of the half hour, Helena caught the balls, one after another, and they bowed to the imaginary crowd, a tradition they'd established early on. Today, though, there was applause from the stands.

"Very nice. You're not half-bad a teacher, Helena," Mr. Campbell said as he walked onto the floor and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Yeah, well, I've got a good student," Helena said and beamed at Callum.

"Looks like we'll make a circus man out of you yet, eh?"

"I hope so."

"Think you're ready to try it in front of an audience?" Callum knew an important question when he heard one. Clearly, this had been a topic of discussion amongst the Campbell family.

"I...I'd like to try, sir," he answered.

"None of that 'sir' nonsense," Morris waved his hand. "You're part of the family. Joanne's waiting for you in with the costumes. Hopefully, she's found something for you. When you're done, come back here and we'll run through the bananas routine. It's not too complicated, but we want to make sure you know what you're doing tonight."

"Tonight? I...thank you, but that's awfully...I mean," Callum stammered, "I'm not sure I can do the voice."

"Callum, my boy," Morris said as he put his arm around Callum's shoulders and walked him out, "it doesn't matter about the voice. Not at all. You only have to do two things: make sure they can hear you and have a good time. Now go. We don't want to keep my wife waiting."

#####

"Ah, Callum, excellent," Joanne said, waving to him from among the trunks of costumes. "I have some things for you to try on there on the chair."

Callum picked up the top item, a short red jacket, and held it up, trying to imagine wearing it.

"Oh dear," Joanne said, climbing out of mess, "that wasn't supposed to go on your pile. Here," she dug out a maroon and cream robe and pushed it at him. "This should do the trick. You don't seem to trip too much, and I'm betting you'd prefer something loose. I mean, we have any number of body-suits."

"Thank you, no," Callum said, slipping the robe on over his t-shirt. He mimed juggling, to get the feel of it.

"We could do a hat, but I think we'd do better to fiddle with your hair and leave your line of sight."

"Alright."

"Are you?"

"Sorry?"

"All right?"

"Well, I mean, it is a bit fast."

"That's show business."

"Right."

"You know what this means, don't you? You've officially joined the circus."

"What, I hadn't already?"

She laughed, "Not officially."

"Because that's what I've been telling myself. Hosing off the stands, I'd say, 'Callum, this is what happens when you run away and join the circus.' And now I find out I hadn't, really."

"Sorry. It's not too late to get out. But this is your last chance. After tonight, there's no going back."

"Well, I wouldn't want to let you down."

She laughed again and handed him a pair of canvas trousers. "Put these on." She pointed to a screen behind him. As he stepped behind it, she said, "Helena was right about you."

He froze. "How do you mean?"

"She said we wouldn't regret taking you on. I don't know how she knew. But ever since we got back on the road, she's been a different girl. Do you know, she used to say she wanted to run away and join real life." They both laughed. "She still has her moments, but I think it was good for her, seeing what her life would be like."

"What those poor blighters on the outside live like?" Callum asked, pulling the drawstring tight.

"Exactly. That and looking after you."

"I will have you know," Callum said, stepping out into the room, "that I am a very important person. I," he flourished his hand, "am a circus performer."

"Indeed you are," she agreed, inspecting the outfit, "and that will do nicely. We'll get your hair and makeup figured out later. Let's see if you can juggle in that."

#####

Callum stood just out of the way by the entrance to the floor, shaking out his arms. It wasn't a large crowd, which was to be expected on a Wednesday night, so he didn't feel too bad about being glad there weren't more people out there. He reviewed the patterns they had agreed to use in the performance, hands twitching in anticipation of the moves.

"Remember," he was startled by Helena's voice in his hear and her hand on his shoulder, "Don't let them see you're afraid." He turned toward her, but before he could say anything, they were being announced and she was pushing him out into the bright lights. He blinked for just a moment, then jogged to his starting position. They bowed to the crowd and started juggling, like they had a hundred times before, and, with the familiar motion, Callum regained his equilibrium. Before he knew it, they were on the last trick, and it was time to suggest juggling with bananas. And then they were chasing a man in a gorilla suit back behind the curtain and laughing and everyone was congratulating him and, suddenly, Callum had a flash, a momentary vision.

He was looking at Morris and Joanne, each with an arm around the other, when he saw, instead, himself and Helena. He took a step backwards and almost fell over Pingo and had to apologize profusely. 

As the show continued and everyone else moved on to their next act, Callum walked back out to the ticket booth and collected his thoughts. He wondered if Helena had seen the same thing that night they'd run into each other; if it wasn't that they'd known each other before, but that she had known that they would, at some point in the future, know each other, which made them actually get to that point. It was like all those literary analyses on Classical texts and made his head hurt. But, issues of destiny aside, he found he didn't mind the idea of their taking over the family business. Not today, of course, not even next year, but someday, when he knew his way around the circus without tripping over important ropes and when five years age difference wasn't nearly so wide a gap.

 


End file.
